


as the light begins to fade

by sweetwhump



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Spies & Secret Agents, Angst with a Happy Ending, Comfort, Fear, Hurt Victor Nikiforov, Hurt/Comfort, Interrogation, M/M, Rescue, Torture, Violence, Waterboarding, Whump
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-27
Packaged: 2019-04-13 22:45:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,409
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14122452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sweetwhump/pseuds/sweetwhump
Summary: "He wants so badly to give them the information they want. To lay bare the secrets of his organization, to name every agent who works there. To give them anything, everything, if it will prevent this from happening.But he can’t. For Yuuri’s sake. For the sake of all the innocent lives his employers protect. This is bigger than him, this is all so much bigger than him. He knows what he must say.And he knows what happens next."While out on an assignment, Victor falls into enemy hands.





	as the light begins to fade

**Author's Note:**

> Heyo! So this is basically just shameless Victor whump. Please be warned that there will be a fair bit of violence, as well as the following content:
> 
> \- Electric shock  
> \- Broken bones  
> \- Waterboarding
> 
> If any of this is a trigger, or makes you uncomfortable, please don't read any further! Take care of yourselves!

He still doesn’t know how it happened.

One minute, the mission was going fine. He had infiltrated the arms dealer’s mansion undercover for an evening soiree, rubbing shoulders with an eclectic mix of politicians, CEOs, and a handful of prominent crime syndicate leaders. Yuuri’s voice was in his earpiece and his target was in sight.

The next, there was a hypodermic needle in his neck.

He had managed to take out a few enemy operatives before being subdued, but once the sedative kicked in, the fight was effectively over. He was outnumbered, pinned on the ground, his arms wrenched behind his back and ziptied, a dark cloth bag pulled over his head. He had tried to get a few more kicks in from the ground, but with every second the drug’s effects were becoming stronger. His limbs became unresponsive, leaving him dizzy and weak and pliant as he was dragged into a car. The only thing he was able to focus on in those last seconds before he was pulled unwillingly into unconsciousness was Yuuri’s voice in his earpiece.

“ _Hold on, Vitya_ ,” he had said, over and over again, voice strained. “ _I’ll find you. I promise, I’ll find you._ ”

He’d woken up here, in a dingy basement room with a concrete floor and matching walls. He has become very, very familiar with these walls over the past few - what? Hours? Days? It can’t have been more than a week, can it?

It’s difficult to say. He’d been out cold the whole time they’d transported him here. The small, 8 by 10 foot room is entirely windowless, the only source of light a bright fluorescent lamp they keep shining directly in his eyes at all times.

They keep him awake as much as they can with lights and noise and pain. The only sleep he gets is if he passes out after a particularly rigorous interrogation session and even then, they don’t let him rest for long before a bucket of freezing water is thrown over him and the next round begins. They have given him no food since bringing him here, and the only water they’ve given him is when they, when they - no.  _No. Don’t think about it._

A sudden sound pulls Victor back to awareness. The sound of a heavy metal door being unlocked from the outside. A stab of fear turns Victor’s blood to ice. They’re coming back, and he knows they won’t be happy.

The door swings open, and two men in suits step in to the concrete prison. He can’t help but be afraid at the sight of their faces, blank and expressionless as always. He tries to will his hands to stop shaking where they are bound to the arms of the chair, but it’s no use. Even though he has tried so hard to train his mind to overcome the fear, his body reacts. His body remembers the pain, the ceaseless agony that the two bring with them. He presses his lips together in a useless attempt to prevent them from shaking as the two men stop in front of his chair.

A few days ago, or what seems like it, he would have made some sort of defiant quip, some attempt to use snark or bravado to mask his fear. But he doesn’t have it in him any more. Days of relentless torture and exhaustion are wearing on him, and he feels like a shell of the man he was before he was dragged into this cell. He doesn’t have the energy to put up a confident front anymore; that urge has been beaten and starved out of him. It’s all he can do not to break down here and now. After all, he knows they must know what he’s done by now, and he knows what comes next…

The taller of his two captors circles the chair and stands behind him, while the shorter lean in close.

“We ran the codes you gave us, Agent Nikiforov.”

Victor draws in a shaky breath, trying his best to keep his expression neutral, trying not to betray the fear he feels.

“I don’t think it will surprise you to find out that they lead us to a dead end.”

_Thank god._ Victor says nothing, still trying to school his features into a neutral expression, praying his captors think he is trying to conceal fear rather than relief. It isn’t a lie. He is still more afraid in this moment than he’s ever been. But the end is in sight now. For better or for worse, the end is in sight.

“You will live to regret that, Agent Nikiforov,” Shorter hisses. “We don’t take kindly to liars around here.”

Immediately, the man behind him pulls a dirty cloth between his teeth, the force causing his head to jerk back.

_Shit._  They’ve never done this before. You don’t gag someone you’re trying to get information out of, it doesn’t make any sense. Victor’s heart pounds frantically in his chest as the realization sets in. This isn’t an interrogation anymore… this is punishment.

The thought is cut short by blazing pain flowing through every fibre of his being. He screams, biting down hard on the rag as his body jerks uncontrollably in his restraints. The agony lasts a few seconds before Shorter pulls the cattle prod away from his side, allowing Victor a few seconds’ reprieve.

And then he shocks him once again.

Victor screams into the gag as every muscle in his body contracts at once, the loss of control terrifying, the pain almost unbearable. Every nerve in his body screams in unison as he is shocked over and over again.

When the pain becomes too much, he tries to take himself away. He goes to a place in his mind that’s warm and softly lit, no shocks, no concrete walls, no drain in the floor. His bed is there, and his dog - god, he misses Makkachin so much he could cry. Yuuri is there, too. Not helpfully in his ear the way he is during missions, but there in the bed with him. His arms, not these coarse, unforgiving ropes, are the only thing wrapped around him. He smiles at Victor and whispers sweet nothings in his ear. He doesn’t ask for any information. His touches are gentle and loving and they don’t hurt at all, they don’t cut or burn or, or, or-

He is shocked again, this time on his upper thigh. He thinks he can smell something burning. It hurts, it hurts, he can’t take it, he screams, he is shocked again -  _no. Take yourself away from here._ Think about Yuuri. Think about warm brown eyes and gentle smiles. About walks on the beach and late nights spent together in bed and early morning training sessions at the agency. How Yuuri’s body moves so gracefully when they spar together, like his body is creating music. Think about the man he loves more than anything, the man who is coming for him, who  _promised_ he would come for him. Think of home.

The shocks stop after an eternity and Victor sags in his bonds, head hanging down, breathing heavily though his nose. Low, muffled keening escapes through the rag in his mouth.

Rough hands seize him by the hair and jerk his head back forcefully, tearing the gag out from between clenched teeth. Shorter leans in again and holds the cattle prod up to his face, running it along his cheek. Victor squeezes his eyes shut and tries to turn his head away, but Taller’s grip on his hair is too tight.

“If you ever fucking lie to me again,” Shorter says softly, tapping the prongs of the instrument on Victor’s lips, “I will ram this thing down your fucking throat.”

Victor forces himself to look his captor in the eye, glaring at him through unshed tears. Shorter chuckles, pulling the cattle prod away from his mouth.

“Still got some fight left in you, eh, Agent? Good. It’s more fun that way.”

“Go to hell,” Victor whispers, his voice shaking only a little, before he is backhanded across the face with enough force that he sees stars. His teeth cut the inside of his cheek and his mouth fills with blood.

Through the ringing in his ears, he hears a metallic clang as one of his interrogators picks something up off the floor. Victor raises his head with some effort to see Taller advancing with a crowbar.

Even though he knows it’s useless, bound to this chair as he is, he instinctively tries to curl in on himself, to protect his core from the impact. It’s about as useful as expected. The ropes restraining him leave him open and vulnerable to the blow, which lands with a sickening thud against his unprotected chest.

Pain explodes through his chest as he feels something  _give_  under the force of the hit, driving the air from his lungs. The breath he pulls in before he screams feels like a knife stabbing into him.

“Now, are you ready to cooperate, Agent Nikiforov?”  Shorter asks over his agonized cry, sounding almost bored.

Victor catches his breath, spits out a mouthful of blood at him and, with the last ounce of defiance he can muster, hisses a weak but spirited, “Fuck you.”

Taller’s fist hits him so hard his chair is knocked over backwards and he hits the floor, his vision going white as the back of his head meets the concrete with a resounding  _crack!_

The impact jostles his broken rib and his ankle, broken from an earlier interrogation session. He doesn’t even have time to scream before a steel-toed boot catches him in the side, knocking the wind out of him once more. He tries again in vain to curl up against the pain, only to be met with another savage kick, this time to the side with the broken rib. He wants to scream, but he can’t take in enough air to do so, the pain is too much to bear, it’s overwhelming, and as he catches a third blow, finally, mercifully -

-He blacks out.

He comes to an indeterminate amount of time later to the sound of the metal door slamming shut. His head swims, and he has to fight back a wave of nausea. Is he concussed from the fall, or is this just the sleep deprivation wearing on him?

All he can see now, on his back, on the floor, still bound to the chair, is the concrete ceiling and that damned fluorescent light. He can’t see his captors, or hear anything around him but his own pained, rasping breaths. His interrogators are gone.

…Was that it? Just a tazing and a beating?

Every fibre of Victor’s being is in agony, but compared to previous sessions, this was tame. His captors don’t usually leave him alone until he’s either passed out or broken and fed them some false information.

What are they playing at? Is this some sort of psychological game? It’s certainly not mercy, that isn’t a concept these people understand. But then, why would they leave?

Before he has a chance to think on it any further, the door opens and his torturers enter the room once more.

He turns his head, the movement causing a wave of dizziness to wash over him, and he sees what they’ve brought back in with them. A towel and a few bottles of water.

Victor feels like he’s going to be sick.

Before he knows what he’s doing, a terrified moan tears itself out of his throat, and he begins to struggle in his bonds anew. An overwhelming sense of dread washes over him, sheer, raw terror at the sight of the seemingly innocuous items held by his captors.

“You-” he begins in a low, shaky voice that cracks almost instantly. He draws in a breath, savours it, while he still can. “You don’t have to do this.”

Taller glances at him, eyes merciless. Victor promised himself at the beginning of all this that he would never let himself beg, no matter what they did to him.  

Then again, at the beginning of all this, he had never been waterboarded before.

“Please.” The word comes out in a quiet, desperate rush, just a hair’s breadth away from a sob.

The man just regards him coldly, before continuing preparations with his accomplice, testing Victor’s bonds to ensure he can’t thrash around too much, tightening them when necessary.  

As his restraints tighten around him, Victor feels hysteria clawing its way up his throat, and forces himself to swallow it down. He can’t let himself panic now, it will only make what they are about to do even worse. He has to control himself if he’s going to make it through this again.

He’s not sure if he is going to make it through this again.

“Give us the access codes.”

He wants so badly to tell them. To lay bare the secrets of his organization, to name every agent who works there. To give them whatever they want if it will prevent this from happening.

But he can’t. For Yuuri’s sake. For the sake of all the innocent lives his employers protect. This is bigger than him, this is all so much bigger than him. He knows what he must say.

“No.”

The towel, still dry, drops over his face like a death sentence. This time, he can’t hold back the sob.

“Last chance, Agent Nikiforov.”

His body tenses when the first trickle of water hits the towel, right between his mouth and nose. He pulls in one last, desperate breath before the water spreads, soaking the cloth and pouring into his nose and over his closed mouth. He holds his breath as best he can at first, counting the seconds in a futile effort to combat the overwhelming, primal terror that accompanies the drowning sensation.

_Five, six, seven, eight…_

His lungs begin to ache from the lack of oxygen. His heart pounds and he struggles against his restraints, to no avail. The terror is overwhelming, and he fights back a sob, knowing it would only make this worse. He mustn’t panic, he knows that, but every instinct is screaming at him to run, to fight, to get away, to  _do something_  to save himself.  But he is helpless like this, tied down and smothered, and there is nothing he can do but lie back and suffocate, slowly and painfully under the merciless eyes of his captors.

_Eleven, twelve, thirteen…_

Each second without air feels like a century.  His lungs can’t take this anymore and he tries to suck in a breath, inhaling droplets of water, triggering a frantic coughing fit that jostles his broken rib and sends him into spasms of agony.

_Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, eighteen -_

The towel is pulled off a after an eternity and Victor twists his head to the side, trying desperately to hack up the water he inhaled. A rough hand grabs his jaw and forces his head to face forward. He stares up at the ceiling and the merciless eyes of his captors through his tears.

“Are you ready to give us the codes, Agent Nikiforov?” Shorter asks, as if he’s trying to reason with a petulant toddler.

“I can’t, I can’t,” he sobs, shaking his head as best he can in Taller’s iron grip. He sees the towel descending once more. “Please, no-!”  

And he is trapped in the smothering darkness once again.

More water soaks the towel and he wants to scream. Every attempted inhalation draws the sopping wet cloth tighter against his mouth and nose, smothering him, drowning him. He bucks against his restraints like a wild animal, desperate for the next breath of air that just doesn’t come. His lungs burn horribly as he thrashes in his bonds, shaking his head in an unsuccessful attempt to dislodge the towel.

_Eighteen, nineteen, twenty…_

They’ve never left it on this long before. He screams for mercy as best he can, voice muffled by the drowning cloth. He throws every ounce of his fading strength into fighting against the bonds holding him down. It doesn’t matter that the struggling further tears up his wrists, already abraded from the coarse ropes. It doesn’t matter that it jostles his shattered ankle, his cracked rib. He can heal from those injuries. He can’t heal from drowning. He needs to breathe,  _he needs to breathe_ , otherwise he’ll die here in this cell, and Yuuri will find his body here, Yuuri,  _Yuuri_ -

-He tries desperately to take himself away from this smothering sensation, to go to that warm, soft place with Yuuri and his brown eyes and his sweet smile, but the absolute terror of suffocation keeps him grounded to this place, this unbearable moment. He can’t escape it, not even in his mind, he’s trapped here in the dark, bound and alone and drowning, dying, Yuuri, please,  _please_ -

-He wants to see Yuuri one last time. He wants to hold him. He wants to tell him he loves him. He wants to  _breathe_ , he needs to breathe. He’ll talk, he’ll give his captors any information they want, no lies, no tricks, he’d trade his soul for the next breath of air, but they won’t listen, they won’t pull the towel off and let him breathe, please, please,  _why won’t they let him breathe_?-

-His heartbeat is slowing down as he suffocates. His body is losing the power to struggle. He is so afraid. His pulse sounds like thunder to his own ears, like gunshots echoing off of cold cement walls. He swears he can hear Yuuri’s voice calling his name as he fades.-

_I’m sorry, Yuuri,_ he thinks, his mind growing hazy from the lack of oxygen. _I’m so sorry, my love. I tried to hold on for you…_

The towel is ripped off his face.

Victor’s chest heaves as he sucks in oxygen desperately, inhaling some of the water dripping off the towel in the process, which triggers another coughing fit. The pain in his chest is unbearable. He tries to scream but all that comes out is a choked, wet wail, cut off by another frantic gasp.

Victor gulps in air as best he can between panicked sobs, his eyes shut tight, curled into himself as much as he can manage, still bound to this chair as he is. Every gasp and sob triggers a stab of pain in his broken rib, but he doesn’t care, he’ll take it. The relentless agony that comes with each breath is still kinder than the terrible, all-consuming fear of suffocation.

He feels cool hands on his face and flinches away with a frightened cry. They’re going to hurt him again. He can’t take it. He can’t he can’t he can’t he can’t  _he can’t_ -

“No more,” he begs, still weeping, any semblance of stoicism a distant memory. “No more, please,  _please_.”

The hands leave his face and seconds later, the world tilts around him, a disorienting feeling, especially with his eyes closed. His feet are suddenly touching the floor again and he realizes the chair has been righted.

That must mean they’re finished, right? If they’re sitting him back up it means they won’t drown him again, please, please don’t let them drown him again. He gulps in more air amid wet coughs and wrenching sobs.

He feels a hand on his wrist and flinches back, closing his fist instinctively. They’re going to hurt him again, break his fingers, remove a nail. Surprisingly, though, the hand pulls back slightly at his reaction.

…What? Why aren’t they hurting him? Are they gearing up for something even worse?

There is a tugging sensation, and the ropes fall away from his right wrist. Moments later, he feels the hands at his left side, repeating the actions.

With his hands free, Victor knows he should be able to put up a fight, try to get the upper hand back against his captors, do  _something_. But he feels so weak, half-drowned, starved and exhausted as he is. He can’t do anything except remain in this chair, helpless and pliant for his torturers to toy with as they please.

Surprisingly, though, nothing happens. Victor waits, eyes still closed, pulse still pounding, lungs still desperately working to pull in as much air as possible, body still tensed, wound up tight, paralyzed with fear as he waits for more pain, for the torture to begin anew.

Still, nothing. No pain. It doesn’t make sense.

Slowly, the lack of pain gets through to him. His panic recedes enough for him to pay attention to what is happening around him, to hear more than just his own panicked breaths and frantic heartbeat. To hear a voice speaking to him closeby, slowly and gently.

“It’s me, it’s just me, Vitya,” the voice is saying. “You’re safe, I promise. Open your eyes.”

Victor almost stops breathing again. He knows that voice. It’s the last voice he heard before he was taken. The voice that had provided intel and support during countless missions. The voice that belongs to the man he loves more than anything or anyone in this world.

His eyes snap open, and immediately fill with fresh tears at the sight before him.

He looks like hell. His face is pale and spattered with blood, and there are dark circles under those gorgeous brown eyes. There is a bruise starting to show on his cheek and his bottom lip is split. His face is drawn and worried as he cuts away at Victor’s restraints.

But it’s him. He’s here, just like he promised.

“Yuuri,” Victor breathes, his entire frame sagging with relief.

At that moment, Yuuri manages to cut through the ropes binding his chest to the chair.  Without any strength remaining to hold himself up, he slumps, exhausted, into Yuuri’s arms, which wrap around him exceedingly gently, mindful of Victor’s injuries.

It is the first touch in god knows how long that hasn’t hurt him, and it’s that gentleness that breaks him, the feeling of Yuuri’s arms around him, not a hallucination brought on by the sleep deprivation, not a fantasy used to escape brutal, unending torture, but solid, real,  _here_.

_Yuuri is here_. Yuuri found him, just like he promised he would. Yuuri took out his captors and pulled him back from the brink of drowning, saved him just like he has so many times before.  _Yuuri is here._ He’s safe now.

The relief that comes with that knowledge crashes down on him and he is overwhelmed, burying his face in Yuuri’s shoulder and, for the first time since he woke up in this place, permitting himself to cry without restraint.

He sobs gently, trying and failing to minimize the pain caused by his broken rib. Yuuri holds him through it, keeps him grounded in a firm but gentle embrace as he falls apart under the weight of the things that have been done to him in this room.

“Vitya,” Yuuri breathes into Victor’s hair, sounding close to tears himself. “I’m so sorry I took so long.”

Victor just shakes his head, too exhausted and overcome to speak. Yuuri holds him like that a little while longer, until his sobs have mostly subsided. Then he settles Victor gently back until he’s sitting upright on his own, before continuing to work on freeing him from the rest of his restraints.

As he works, Victor looks around the room. Taller is lying immediately to his left in a pool of his own blood, a neat bullet hole in his forehead. Victor isn’t surprised at the sight; Yuuri is without a doubt the most skilled marksman in their organization. Shorter is a few   feet away, crumpled on his side with his back to Victor. Even as corpses, the sight of his captors turns Victor’s stomach, and he turns his attention back to Yuuri.

He looks absolutely haggard, as if he hasn’t slept in days. There is a look of intense concentration on his face as he carefully works to free Victor’s broken ankle from its bonds without jarring it. His hands are shaking as he fumbles with the ropes. Victor can’t tell if it’s from nerves or anger.

He wants to reach out, to comfort Yuuri, but his arms feel like lead weights, exhaustion and residual fear rendering him immobile, and he knows his own hands are shaking just as much anyway.

The ropes finally fall away from his injured ankle and Yuuri sits back, folding his knife and pocketing it.

“C’mon, let’s get you out of here… can you stand?”

Victor doubts it, but his pride gets the better of him. He needs to cling to whatever shred of dignity he has left. “I… I think so.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes,” he lies. He is going to walk out of this prison under his own power if it kills him.  

Yuuri supports him with a gentle but firm grip on his upper arms as he tries to rise. Every muscle in his body protests as he does, stiff and weak from being restrained in the same position for days on end. He leans heavily on Yuuri and manages to stand for just a moment, before his good leg gives out and his weight comes down on the broken ankle.

The nausea-inducing explosion of pain nearly sends him crashing back down to the merciless concrete floor with a cry, but his collapse is stopped at the last minute by Yuuri, who manages to catch him.

_“Victor!”_

He breathes heavily, resting his forehead against Yuuri’s collarbone until the pain recedes, then stammers out a weak, “S’ry…”

“It’s okay, Vitya. I’m gonna get you out of here, but…” Yuuri looks around the room, and then swears softly. “It’s going to hurt. I’m so sorry. I promise I’ll make it as quick as possible, okay?”

It takes tremendous effort to nod, but Victor manages it. In all honesty, he doesn’t care about a little more pain if it means getting out of this hellhole. And he trusts Yuuri with his life. He knows he won’t prolong the pain if he can help it.

Yuuri gives him a quick, worried kiss on the temple before drawing in a steadying breath and rising to his feet, scooping Victor up in a bridal carry as he goes. The abrupt movement jostles Victor’s rib and his ankle and he hisses in pain, turning his face to bury it in Yuuri’s chest.

“Sorry, I’m sorry!”

If he weren’t in so much pain, Victor could laugh.

“S’okay, love.” He manages weakly. “Let’s just… get out of here.”

Yuuri nods, and heads for the stairs.

As he climbs, each step sends a stab of agony through Victor. He bites his lip so hard to keep from crying out that it starts to bleed again. He makes it about twelve steps up before he can no longer compete with the pain, and the world goes dark around him.

…

“…Katsuki reporting in… arrived at safe house… urgent need of medevac…”

_“….Coordinates received, Agent… dispatching pilot… ETA 45…”_

“…Understood.”

Victor’s eyes flutter open to the sound of Yuuri’s voice. He immediately regrets the decision. He hasn’t seen the sun in days, shut up in that basement, and the light streaming in through the windows is too much for him. He whimpers and throws an arm over his eyes as Yuuri curses softly beside him.

“Vitya, are you awake?”

It hurts to nod, but Victor manages, too weak to speak just yet. There is a quiet rustling sound, and the room grows darker around him. The surface underneath him dips, and then there is a warm hand carding through his hair.

“I just got off the comm with HQ. They’re sending a chopper out to meet us. They’ll be here soon, I just need you to hold on a little longer, okay?”

Victor nods again.

“I patched you up as much as I could with what was in the first aid kit,” Yuuri says. “I’m sorry I couldn’t do more. I have some painkillers, if you’re okay to take them.”

Victor nods again and blinks his eyes open as Yuuri helps him to sit up. It’s a slow process with his injured rib but he manages to get propped up against a pillow with minimal pain. He swallows the pill that Yuuri gives him dry, the sight of the offered water bottle making his blood run cold and his hands start to shake, his breath coming in short, terrified gasps until Yuuri manages to talk him down.

He’s parched, but he can’t even look at a bottle of water without feeling on his face, filling his nose, his throat, his lungs, drowning him. The act of drinking, a basic task, necessary for survival, rendered all but impossible. Victor wonders vaguely if he will ever recover from the things they did to him in that cold basement room over the past… god, he doesn’t even know.

He clears his dry throat, blinks back the tears, and tries to keep his voice steady as he asks Yuuri. “How long has it been?”

A heavy pause. Yuuri refuses to meet his eyes.

“Eight days,” Yuuri finally says, gaze fixed firmly on the mattress, but not really looking at it. He looks like he’s barely holding back tears.  “I’m… I’m so, so, sorry it took me so long, Vitya.”

Victor shakes his head, and then regrets the decision when the movement sends a throb of pain through his head. “Don’t apologize, Yuuri. Knowing you were out there, knowing - “ he swallows against the swell of emotion. “Knowing you were coming for me…. it was all that kept me sane.”

Yuuri’s eyes well up as he leans forward and envelops Victor in a gentle hug, exceedingly mindful of his various injuries. Victor can feel rather than hear his muffled sobs into his shoulder.

“I promise I’ll never let you go again,” Yuuri whispers, his voice breaking.  

Victor clutches Yuuri to him as tight as he can, giving in to his own tears once again. He’s still having trouble believing that this is real. After days of constant fear and pain, the safety of Yuuri’s arms feels too good to be true. If it weren’t for the warm solidity of Yuuri’s body against his, the feeling of his heartbeat, he would think this is a dream, an extension of the warm bright place he went to in his head when the torture became too much.

But even in his most vivid escapist fantasies, it never felt this real. Yuuri’s eyes were never so brown, his hands so soft, his tears so warm, his words so comforting. This is real, Victor knows.  _It’s real._  Yuuri came for him, and saved him, and took him away from that place, and his mind and body are hurt and broken in ways he doesn’t know if he’ll ever recover from… but for now, in this moment, he is safe. It’s over. He is safe.

When both of their sobs finally subside, Yuuri lays Victor back down on the soft bed with a kiss on the forehead, mindful of his split lip. He glances at the clock on the wall.

“Medevac will be another half hour or so,” he says. “You should get some sleep.”

The idea of sleep makes his heart stutter, and his hands begin to shake again.

“I… I don’t know if I can,” Victor mumbles. “This all feels like a dream. I’m afraid… if I let myself sleep, I’ll wake up back there, with them. I can’t, I c-can’t - “

His voice breaks and he covers his eyes with shaky palms, trying to quell the nauseating terror rising in him -

-And then he feels a warm body against his as Yuuri lays down beside him, pressed up against his uninjured side with his arm around him. He still feels fragile, shaky, ungrounded… but Yuuri’s body next to his brings a warmth and comfort he never thought he’d feel again.

“Vitya, honey, it’s alright,” Yuuri whispers, stroking his hair until the panic dies down and his exhaustion becomes more pronounced. “You’re out of there. You’re safe. I’m right here with you. You can go back to sleep. Just sleep, love, I’m here, I’m right here…”

And here in this warm white room, safe in his Yuuri’s arms for the first time in days, Victor slips into a dreamless sleep.


End file.
